Back in 1942, as a soldier in the U.S. Army Air Corps at Fort Custer, he bought a bottle of Coca-Cola at the post exchange. He doesn’t remember what the glass bottle of soda cost. “I was going to share it with the guys,” he recalled, before they were shipped off to fight in World War II.

That plan didn’t work, so he kept it as a souvenir.

Pfc. Grillo carried the capped bottle with him when he was sent to the Philippines (a 30-day trip by ship) and even Japan.

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It stayed unopened when he came home on leave and married his beloved Rose in 1944.

In 1946, when he was discharged from the Army — with two bronze stars — the soda bottle remained with him, still in tact.

He considered opening it at the birth of their first child, Donna. That didn’t happen. Nor did the Grillos pop the top when two other children, Sam and Julie, came along.

The couple’s anniversaries came and went, the soft drink bottle remained unopened. Even at their 50th anniversary, they didn’t bring out the bottle opener.

Rose died four years ago, after a nearly decade-long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Dominic, who turns 91 in June, cared for her during her illness, just as he did their daughter, Donna, until her death.

Dominic has memories of the young Rose he met at her father’s grocery store on McNichols Road in Detroit, along with the cards and letters he saved that she sent him daily during his four years away from home in the military. He said he wrote about once a week, but didn’t tell her anything that would be worrisome.

Stacks of photographs capture the years they spent together with their family, which now includes seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

And there still is the unopened Coca Cola bottle.

It gets pushed to the back of the cupboard, occasionally forgotten. A bit of it has evaporated in those 71 years. But Dominic’s mememories of those years haven’t.

The owner of Grillo Trucking – he retired at age 65 – recalls the happy times spent with Rose and his family, especially at the 3,000-square-foot home he built on a lake in Ortonville.

Memories are there, too, of winning a jitterbug contest over 250 other contestants while he was in the Army. At home, he and Rose “danced beautifully together,” his family says, and he still dances at least once a month in Sterling Heights. Dominic enjoys the waltz but he still likes to jitterbug (now with his girlfriend).

He’s also likely to be found shoveling his own snow (he did his entire subdivision until two years ago -- and making pizzas in the kitchen for his family.